Chicken and Goat Cheese Pasta Bolognese with Crispy Pepperoni
April 25, 2023
Chicken and Goat Cheese Pasta Bolognese with Crispy Pepperoni
This recipe for Chicken and Goat Cheese Pasta Bolognese with Crispy Pepperoni is going to make your taste buds dance with joy! I'm not exaggerating, seriously. It's a super easy dish to make but is sure to impress, with tangy goat cheese, fresh spinach, and perfectly crispy pepperoni. Like pizza pasta, but with a few fun twists to make it interesting and loaded with nutrition.
Preheat the oven to 400 F. Meanwhile, start your bolognese. Add your onion to a large skillet over medium heat, then season with salt, pepper and red pepper flake, and sauté until translucent. Add your minced garlic and sauté until fragrant (about a minute).
Add ground chicken, season with salt + pepper, break apart and sauté until browned. Don’t rush this step, you want to get some caramelization on the meat and the pan!
While your meat is caramelizing, arrange your pepperoni on a cookie rack and set inside a cookie sheet. Bake in preheated oven for 5-7 minutes or until crispy and set aside. Alternatively, you can air fry at the same temp until crispy.
Once you’ve got some nice caramelization on the meat, add tomato paste and cook for a few more minutes. Ideally you want to caramelize the sugars in the tomato paste (meaning, get some color on that tomato paste too) to deepen the flavor even more.
Deglaze the pan with some chicken stock, scraping up any of the brown bits left on the pan. Then, add your goat cheese and freshly grated parm, and stir to combine. Taste for seasoning and adjust (add salt) if need be.
Add your fresh spinach, adding in batches if need be, until fairly wilted. Then. add your al dente pasta, along with a good splash (about a 1/4 C is good to start) of salty, starchy pasta water and toss to coat, adding more pasta water to add to the sauce if need be (add till you have the consistency you like).
Crush your crispy fried pepperoni and sprinkle over your pasta bolognese with more freshly grated parm and fresh basil and enjoy!
Notes
Use ground dark meat chicken or a combo of white and dark meat for more flavor (more fat)!If you’re not a fan of goat cheese, you can substitute cream cheese, mascarpone, greek yogurt or even ricotta. The cream cheese/mascarpone will be thick but not quite as tangy, the yogurt will have the tang but won’t be as thick, and ricotta will and a fresher flavor with less creaminess and tang. Reserve extra of your starchy pasta water for leftovers and to add to the sauce if need be. Pasta water helps to bind the sauce to the pasta as well.
I'm a big eater, a huge fan of pasta (and mac n cheese), and I'm on a mission to prove that indulgence and balance can exist well together without silly restrictions or dieting. Life's too short to eat bad food!
